Various ministers on Thursday signed the Multi-Party Memorandum of Understanding on advanced and improved road safety performance in Windhoek.
The Multi-Party Memorandum of Understanding was signed by ministers and deputy ministers from different ministries including the Ministry of Health and Social Services; education, arts and culture; works and transport; mines and energy; home affairs, immigration, safety and security as well as the Ministry Urban and Rural Development and the chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC).
This strategy serves the purpose of binding all the respective ministries to the role assigned to Namibia’s National Road Safety Strategy as part of the country’s second Decade of Action for Road Safety Strategy – a roadmap for the period of 2021-2030 following the first strategy outlining the focus areas, objectives and initiatives the NRSC and all road safety stakeholders in Namibia intend to take to achieve improved road safety within the 10-year period.
Speaking during the signing ceremony in her capacity as road safety patron, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah said the strategy was endorsed following Cabinet’s fourth decision-making meeting held in March 2021, and it assigns various responsibilities to different institutions and role players.
She added that, among various reasons, the signing of the MoU is also to find a way in which programmes, projects and initiatives assigned to respective ministries can find their way into these ministries’ strategic and annual plans, to ensure that they collectively realise their goals of reducing fatalities on roads by 50 per cent by the end of the decade.
“According to the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund, from January to June this year, we have lost 226 lives due to road crashes,” she said.
Nandi-Ndaitwah went on to say, she believes that if it was not for the COVID-19 related restrictions, the country would have recorded fatalities in excess of 300.
She further encouraged a culture of working together, saying improved road safety performance can only be achieved by working together from the perspective of the regulating authorities and the road-using members of the public.
Source: Namibia Press Agency
